Shane Black And Drew Pearce On Not Incorporating "Demon In A Bottle" Into IRON MAN 3

Iron Man 3 director Shane Black and writer Drew Pearce reveal that Marvel were reluctant to let them include Tony Stark's alcoholism in the threequel and also sharing their thoughts on the possibility of it happening at some point in the future.

The winner (@Jasper_UTF, a.k.a. MovieMaster) of our recent Iron Man 3 contest - in which we offered one lucky fan the chance to interview Shane Black and Drew Pearce - has gotten back to us with some highlights from their chat and they include some very interesting tidbits of information! In this latest instalment, the duo share their thoughts on the decision not to tackle the "Demon in a Bottle" storyline in Iron Man 3. As well as discussing why they felt they couldn't incorporate Tony Stark's alcoholism into the film, both Black and Pearce share their thoughts on how it could be made to work and whether they think Marvel will decide to focus on it at some point in the future.

Considering how dark Tony Stark's character is in the Marvel Universe is there anything that you wanted to put in the film but were told by the studio 'this won't play for kids'?

Shane: The drinking. Even if you look at the websites of the mommy bloggers they say, you know, 'Watch out, mom's! Tony drinks in this movie!' It's amazing. There's one or two scenes in this movie where he picks up a drink and it'll be in those blogs.

Drew: It's funny because it's only a glass of wine in this one, isn't it?

Shane: Yeah, so they'll say 'watch out because he drinks'. It's pretty amazing because it used to be you drank all the time in movies.

Drew: In our first draft Tony was a bit more rock'n'roll.

Shane: I think we were just told by the studio that we should probably paint Tony Stark as being kind of an industrialist and a crazy guy, or even a bad guy at some points, but the Demon in a Bottle stuff of him being an alcoholic wouldn't really fly. I don't blame that.

Drew: It's also kind of a 'pick your battles' thing; alcoholism is a massive problem but it's also not the best villain for a movie.

Shane: If you're gonna do alcoholism and the Mandarin, then you would really have to make the whole movie about it-

Drew: Otherwise you'll be giving it the short drift.

Shane: But I wouldn't be surprised if at some point someone wanted to make a movie and they'd run out of directions for the character, then they've still got Demon in a Bottle.

Marvel Studios’ Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy’s hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

So why not make the entire movie about alcholism and The Mandarin instead of Iron Patriot, Fake Mandarin & Extremis.

Thewhole Iron Patriot thing is stupid when Captain America is around. Why would the president not ask Steve Rogers to be the poster boy of America since he already is. The MCU is alreayd starting to contradict itself.

Yeah, Iron Man 2 took Demon in a Bottle and turned it into "Tony is a reckless asshole who has palladium poisoning. So let's have him blow up some watermelons." It had the DNA of Demon in a Bottle, and I think that's all we need in this series. I don't want to pay $15 to see two hours of Iron Man getting interventioned.

Why is everyone blaming Shane Black for the twist?! We all know marvel signed off on it! They run their studio with an iron fist, so please, stop! Besides general audiences wont care, and like it or not, Marvel is out to make money, not please fan boys.

Demon in the bottle could have easily been tied into PostDramtic Stress due to the events of The Avenger's. The Mandarin should of had his rings and it should have been a battle of magic vs science with Tony in total disbelief. They could have even left it ambigious to wether the rings were fake until the films end.

@RobertGriffin the reason I doubt they were scared of upsetting the Chinese is because if they actually were they wouldn't have used Mandarin in the first place. And for everyone flipping out over the whole Mandarin twist, just think about how stupid and ridiculous it would be to see a karate master asian dude in some green robes with some colorful bling that just happens to shoot out lasers and sh*t. If they strayed so far from the source for an easily adaptable character like Loki, then I would be pissed. But I'm okay with them butchering Mandarin, who I thought was always kind of a dumb character in the comics in the first place.

God damnit, every movie someone brings up Demon in the bottle! it's getting kind of annoying bringing it up! In my opinion, is not even that great of a story. The original Armor Wars arc is way better!

I was watching an episode of Powerpuff Girls with my kids and they had these 4 PPG fans buying Chemical X from Mojo in a dark alley. He tells them to just have fun. So they do, and they get hooked, and go back for more. To which Mojo says sure bit this time you have to destroy the Powerpuff Girls for me. And they agree, untill they realize the error of their ways. The Girls even tell them to "just say no". So of they can have such an obvious alagory for drugs in such a kid-oriented show like Powerpuff Girls, why the hell can't we have a little Demon In A Bottle in a PG-13 Iron Man movie?

Also...why the [frick] are you chuckleheads still bitching about Mandarin? They have a valid reason for doing it how they did, and I'd rather have a quality actor like Ben Kingsly then something like Ken Watenabe playing Ras Al Ghul 2.0.

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